It was the boast of Augustus, the first Roman emperor, that he had found
Rome made of brick and left it made of marble. What he meant was that he
had changed the whole face of the city by his extensive building program.
In what follows we shall be concerned only with the buildings in Rome of
the Imperial period – in other words, those erected after 27 BC.

In the inscription which Augustus wrote to be placed on his tomb he gave
a list of all the buildings which he had had erected or restored. His example
was followed by all his successors until the growth of Rome came to an end
when the capital of the Empire was transferred to Constantinople in AD
324. Every emperor was anxious to ensure that his memory survived in one
or more remarkable buildings.

It would be impossible to give a complete list of all the triumphal arches,
baths, temples, and other monuments erected by each emperor, but some of
the better-known ones can be mentioned.

The forums

Augustus realized that the original Forum
was not large enough for the needs of the growing city, and so he built
a new one: later emperors did the same until there were no less than eleven
forums in the city of Rome! After the great fire in Rome in AD,
Nero began to build himself a great palace, the Domus Aurea, or
Golden House. This building occupied so much space that it was said that
all other Romans would have to leave Rome.

After Nero's death, Vespasian built the Colosseum on the site of the Domus
Aurea. One of the most splendid temples in the world was the Temple
of Venus and Roma. The Emperor Hadrian designed and built it himself, and
one of the leading architects of the day was said to have been put to death
for saying that the statues of the gods inside the temple would hit their
heads if they stood up.

At first, building was concentrated round the Forum, but as this area became
more congested, the buildings moved further away. Eventually the whole of
Rome was a mass of monuments. The last monument to be erected in the Forum
was the column erected by the Byzantine Emperor Phocas in AD
610.

Houses and addresses in Rome

A street in ancient Rome. An aristocrat's house (right)
and an insula (left)

It is often thought that Roman houses were spacious villas, only one story
high, with large sunny gardens. However, ancient Rome, at the height of
its power, had a population of well over one million inhabitants; it is
not, therefore, very surprising that most Romans actually lived in insulae,
which were tall buildings, often of six or seven stories, the equivalent
of our modern apartments. It has been calculated that there were about 46,000
of such insulae. We know from the poets Martial and Juvenal that
conditions in these buildings were very primitive: there was often no water
supply, and several families would occupy one room. These buildings were
often in danger of collapsing and laws were passed limiting their height.
The houses of wealthy aristocrats and merchants were not so cramped, but
even these often rose to three stories.

In spite of the size of the city very few of the streets were named, and
none of the houses were numbered. It must have been very difficult for a
Roman of those days to give a friend his address if he had invited him to
his house. Martial tells us that his own address was "the street of the
pear tree on the Quirinal." This, though not precise, was simple compared
with another address Martial mentions: "On the slopes of the Palatine near
the temple of Bacchus and the dome of Cybele, immediately to the right as
you reach the temple of Venus."